Undergraduate Energy Ingenuity

The MIT Energy Initiative and the MIT Energy Club collaborated on an October event to showcase undergraduate student research in energy. Participating students (from freshmen to seniors) came from across MIT's departments to present their projects. They included UROPs, internship projects, class projects and independent research. An eager crowd of energy buffs (families, students, and MIT researchers) were treated to an inside look at investigations into a wide variety of energy ideas and innovations.

Fall 2011 Poster Session Participants

• Tessa Green (Undeclared, 2015): "Pipe dream: A system for simultaneous storage and transport of energy"
• Charles Hsu (Biology, 2014): "SolarClave: Creating a low-cost and user oriented method of medical sterilization for third-world application"
• Charlotte Kirk (Chemical Engineering, 2014): "Production of high energy density alcohols: Fatty acid synthase pathway exploration"
• Martin Lozano (2012, Mechanical Engineering): "Designing an underwater robot that will navigate nuclear reactor piping systems"
• Siva Nagajaran (Undeclared, 2015): "Cell phone recycling"
• Brian Oldfield (Mechanical Engineering, 2013): "Negative current collector design for liquid metal batteries"
• Alex Salazar (Nuclear Engineering, 2013): "Analysis of energy deposition of heavy ion beams in thermonuclear fusion targets"
• Krishna Sattaluri (Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, 2012): "Body-power applications using thermoelectric generators'

These presenters successfully completed the Poster Scholars Program, which is a new joint effort of the MIT Energy Club and the MIT Energy Initiative. Selected undergraduates with energy projects are paired with graduate student mentors, who act as their guides in the poster-making and delivery process.

The program kicks off with a seminar on effective presentation skills and the do's and don'ts of poster layout. Over the following two weeks, students work independently and with their mentors to hone their communication skills, including practice pitching sessions and advice on how to create proper visual aids. This 2 week program culminates in a public poster session, which this year was held in the Stata Center over Family Weekend, October 14th.